Zutara Poster Aftermath
by Isil Elen
Summary: By popular demand, the sequel to "Zutara? What the heck is that?". Zutara, but vague enough that it shouldn't offend Kataangers. Second chapter up at long last. Complete.
1. Chapter 1

Author's note: Let's face it, if Avatar weren't a kid's show, it would have been Zuko that Katara kissed at the end. We know she goes for the older bad-boy type, and it's obvious how deeply Zuko cares about her. So this is written according to how the characters were shaped for us, not necessarily how they were forced to act because of a kiddie-safe TV rating. Yes, this is Zutara, but it's vague enough that Kataangers can still gloat and Zutarians can hold it smugly to their hearts. There will be at least a second chapter.

* * *

Zuko, twice-exiled prince of the Fire Nation, was chopping vegetables. Rather than sulking at having to perform such a menial task, he was mildly confused and more than mildly uncomfortable with the way the Southern Tribe waterbender was looking at him. He hadn't done anything wrong - that he knew of - to make her so upset. That poster wasn't _his_ fault. He just couldn't puzzle out why she would deliberately put them in a situation where they would be alone together if she was that angry at him.

The radish in his hand mocked him silently. _"Come with me," she says. "I want to see your sword in action," she says. Yeah, and then she hands me a bag of produce and tells me to chop it._ His only consolation was that Aang and Sokka hadn't been there to witness it - Toph smothering laughter was bad enough. He caught Katara glaring at him, raised his one remaining eyebrow, and the glare turned into a scowl. Zuko started slicing the radish.

"Who is she?"

Both radish and knife wound up on the floor and Zuko checked to make sure he hadn't cut himself. "Who's who?" he asked, thoroughly confused and a little irritated at the waterbender's angry outburst.

"Your 'passion without love' girl," Katara spat.

"You mean Mai?"

"The girl with the knives?" The water in the cook-pot, which had been simmering happily, developed a crust of rapidly-melting ice. "You got passion out of _her?"_

Zuko eyed the shrinking disk of ice in the pot and decided that discretion was the better part of not being frozen from the inside out. He shrugged, not making eye contact. The ice grew thicker.

"Do you love her?"

Love one of Azula's twisted minions? As if. He knew where their loyalties were. "No."

"Why not?"

The accusing tone of the question startled the ex-prince into letting the grip on his temper slip, and he met Katara's eyes squarely.

"Why do you care?" The question came out equally accusing, and his eyes widened. He looked away quickly, but the damage had been done. Frost crept up the inside of the pot.

"I guess it runs in your family, then," the waterbender snapped.

"What are you talking about?" Zuko shot back, irritated.

"Inability to love." There was a pause. "Betrayal."

Zuko blew a stream of fire at the pot, melting the ice. "I know how to love," he said shortly, trying to keep his temper in check.

"Oh?" Katara made the word a sing-song mockery. "So who do you love, then?"

"Uncle," he replied immediately, still keeping his eyes on the pot. Then, softly, "My mother."

The pot crusted over with ice again. "Lucky woman," the waterbender said bitterly. "She must be the only one you haven't betrayed yet." Zuko looked up at that, eyes blazing, and she smirked. "Or did you?"

"I would never betray someone I love!" Zuko protested hotly, but the protest and his anger died a swift death as the memory of the fall of Ba Sing Se rose before him, Iroh's hurt gaze reflected in Katara's stormy eyes. Katara nodded grimly.

"How do we know you won't betray us, too?"

The shamed prince was silent. He had no answer to that. "Do whatever you want to me," he said finally, all the anger gone. "Yell at me, call me names, strike me, bend at me. I won't fight back."

The lack of fight made Katara even angrier. "How do I know you'll keep your word?"

Zuko brushed his hair away from his scar, turning his head so that she could see it clearly. "That's how I got this."

Silence.

"That's how...?" Without the anger, Katara's voice sounded younger. "You didn't-?"

"My father challenged me to an Agni Kai for speaking out of turn. I refused to fight him, so he gave me this-" one hand gestured to the scar covering a third of his face "-as a lesson. To teach me respect."

"Did you love him?"

"I used to."

"Is that why...?" She let the question trail off, not wanting to re-open old wounds.

Zuko snorted. "Why I didn't fight back?"

The waterbender looked away, face coloring slightly, remembering the firebender's assertion that he wouldn't fight back against her. "Why you don't love him anymore."

"Oh. No." Zuko prodded the last bits of ice, watching them melt without Katara's anger keeping them solid.

"Then...why?" The question was hesitant, as though asking for permission to exist.

"He told me that Firelord Azulon had commanded him to kill me, and that he would have done it if my mother hadn't begged for my life." The words were clipped and emotionless. "He banished her."

Katara stared at him in horror, trying to imagine a father who would kill his own son. "What did you do?"

Zuko looked up and met her eyes with a steady gaze. "I told him that I was going to join the Avatar - Aang - and help him defeat him. My father. Firelord Ozai," he corrected himself hastily, sounding as awkward as when he'd first tried to join the gang.

"What did he say to that?" It was like watching two ships collide, Katara thought. So horrible, and yet, she couldn't look away.

A shrug. "He shot lightning at me."

Zuko picked up the knife and speared what was left of the radish. Katara watched him resume slicing it up, and decided that she didn't really want to pry into that anymore. Toph's assertion that he could have turned out a lot worse suddenly sounded a lot more reasonable.

"So...um...why Mai?"

He shrugged and picked up a carrot. "She's always had a thing for me."

"That's it?"

"Well, better her than an arranged marriage. A prince has to carry on the line, after all. At least with her, one of us would be happy and neither of us would be marrying a stranger."

She had to admit, it was a logical reason. But... "Doesn't that seem... I mean, isn't that a little...cold?" Katara winced, waiting for Zuko's temper to explode again.

"A prince doesn't have the luxury of chosing his bride," he said shortly, slicing the carrot into the pot with angry strokes. "A prince has to do what's best for his country."

"But you're not a prince anymore." Katara wasn't sure why she was even pressing the point, except that it sounded like Zuko was somehow running away...and after the last year, she hated seeing him run away before she could beat him soundly.

"It doesn't matter. No one _wants_ me, remember?" He scowled at the diminishing carrot, sullen and resigned to this state of affairs.

Katara hated backing down from a challenge. Really, really, hated backing down and having to admit that something had bested her - which is how she'd wound up at the North Pole. That, she thought, had to be why she found herself saying, "So when happens if - _when_ - Aang defeats the Firelord?"

The look the banished prince gave her at that was far from cold or resigned. Passion burned in his golden eyes, unmatched by anything the water tribe girl had seen except for the notion of capturing Aang to restore his honor. Where that passion had been fueled with anger, however, she was willing to swear that this fire was fueled by love, and she felt her pulse quicken under its heat.

"If I'm still alive," he said slowly, voice throbbing with urgent desire, "I'm going to take the throne." The rapture left his face at the look on hers, and he scowled. "What?"

Katara waved the question away, calling herself three kinds of fool for thinking that no-longer-prince Zuko could have ever been talking about anything but his birthright. She angrily told her pulse to slow back down - she didn't even _like_ him! ...that way. Whatever. The waterbender pushed that sort of thought to the back of her head and returned to the field of battle.

"So when Aang defeats the Firelord, and you_...take the throne_..." she couldn't keep the words free of the derision her anger at him naturally brought with it. "...won't you need to...pick a bride?" _Why am I taking Zuko's hypthetical future love life so seriously? Just because he isn't?_

The look of bewildered dismay on his face was unexpected.

"Wait, you mean you hadn't thought about that?"

Zuko felt his ears start to burn and ducked his head. "No," he admitted.

Sensing an opening, Katara struck. "Not going to marry Mai?"

"No," came the immediate response, and the scowl she was more used to seeing on his face.

"Why not?" The waterbender pounced on that one, clipped word.

"I left her a letter on the Day of Black Sun," he said, a warped sort of smile replacing the scowl. "I told her that I intended to join the Avatar, and that the next time we met, we'd probably be enemies unless she did something to prove that she wasn't Azula's puppet anymore. Even if she does switch sides, she's not going to be very happy with me. You've seen her in a fight – would you trust her to not kill you in your sleep?"

Katara couldn't disagree with Zuko's decision. That didn't mean he'd won the fight, however, nor that she'd given up trying to beat him. Even if it _was_ just a battle of words.

"So who _are_ you going to marry when you're Firelord?" The Water Tribe girl cheerfully ignored the fact that she'd just promoted the ex-prince in her mind, and focused instead on the brief look of hope, followed by an equally brief look of horror, that flashed across his face before being swallowed by his usual unhappy look.

"I don't know," he said sullenly, wishing he could get a few minutes alone with his uncle to find out _why_ that stupid poster even _existed_. Why had the smiling, painted Katara come to mind when the real one had asked him who he would marry? This was all Uncle's fault.

"What was that look?"

"What look?" _Gah…what did she see?_

"You had a look of…well, you had a _look."_ _Oh yes, very descriptive, Katara. Good going. Could you get any more vague?_

Zuko just glared, unwilling to admit to anything he hadn't thought out in detail a million times already.

"Tell me what you were thinking of."

"No."

Katara's eyes narrowed. "I hate you."

"I know." Zukos lips twitched into a self-mocking grin.

Damnit, how could he just…just…_give up _ like that? How was she supposed to beat him when he didn't fight back?

_"Yell at me, call me names, strike me, bend at me. I won't fight back."_

"Get out."

Her voice was as cold as her ice; Zuko got out. Katara sat in the alcove that had been converted into a cooking area, feeling like somehow she'd lost that fight, even though Zuko had been the one to surrender. Why would he surrender to her? Why not Aang, who he'd wronged the most? Why not Sokka, the one least likely to forgive him? Why not Toph, who he'd hurt most recently? Why _her?_

And why did it scare her?


	2. Chapter 2

Author's note: ....at least it wasn't a _full_ year before I got the second chapter up? Sorry about the delay - the notebook I had this chapter written in kinda got lost and then I forgot about it for a few months. I did have the start of a third chapter written out, but I no longer remember what I was going to do with it, and chapter 2 had such a lovely ending point...so this story is now complete. If the rest of the third chapter ever decides to make itself known, I'll just start it as a new story. Avatar not mine, Zutara but no bashing, the usual. Second verse, same as the first!

* * *

Toph had stopped laughing when Zuko came out of the "kitchen", but she started up again at feeling the irritation in his footsteps. The presence of a confused Sokka and Aang probably helped make the situation funnier.

"Hey Flameypants, is Sugar Queen done using your sword?" The implication was impossible to miss, especially since the firebender wasn't wearing his swords.

"Yes," he answered shortly, reminding himself to keep his temper. And not let Toph's nickname bother him; he owed her for her feet. And ignore Sokka, who'd let out a strangled protest and was now pushing roughly past him in search of his hopefully-un-ravished sister.

"Zuko..?" The Avatar's wide eyes reflected the hurt confusion in his voice.

"Firebending practice. Now." Zuko strode angrily through the open room without slowing down, the Avatar trailing behind him like a hopeful – but kicked – puppy.

Aang, for his part, didn't argue with being pulled into extra practice. Zuko was his most open when they were alone, and most likely to answer questions rather than closing up and pulling away again. Arguments between his friends bothered him, and if he could draw the reason for this one out of Zuko, maybe he could work out some sort of compromise. Before Zuko would answer any question, however, he had to be less angry.

At the scorched courtyard designated for firebending, Zuko stopped and turned to the younger boy. _Hold your temper,_ he reminded himself. _Don't take it out on him. Remember Uncle._ The memory of having lashed out at Iroh, and the shame it brought, gave him the strength to chain the dragon.

"Attack," was all he said to Aang.

Aang threw a fistful of fire without hesitation; Zuko swept it out of the way with his own fire.

"Harder." Another fireball met its end.

"Again."

Several more attacks were similarly swept away.

Finally, Zuko took Aang's fire and swept it – not away, but back at him. Aang yelped, throwing out another burst of fire that impacted against the first and canceled it out.

"Good." Zuko dropped out of his stance and grinned at the wide-eyed Avatar.

"What was that?" Aang gasped, feeling tentatively for his eyebrows.

"I've been watching you and Katara practice," the ex-prince said simply, satisfaction written all over his face. "Uncle developed a new technique by watching waterbenders, so I watched you two toss a ball of water back and forth. Fire moves faster than water, but if you're quick enough, the same technique will work. Now you try," he said, launching a weak blast at Aang without warning.

Aang wasn't quite ready; he dodged out of the way of the blast, and the second one that followed it. As he twirled past the third one, he managed to catch the fire slightly and wing it into a wall. The fourth one was already coming at him and he got a better grip on that one and whirled it around and into the path of the fifth – but the two only brushed each other and kept going. Zuko wound up catching number four and flinging it back at Aang, while the younger boy caught number five and sent it to its master. They stood there for a minute or two, tossing the same balls of fire back and forth until the motions became familiar enough to allow conversation.

"So…" Aang said slowly, trying to sound casual. "What was Toph talking about?"

Zuko kept his face blank, channeling any emotional surges into his bending. "Katara had me chopping vegetables," he answered. "Toph was trying to be funny because Katara made a joke about it when she asked me to help her out." The kid was twelve; Zuko had no desire to be the one to explain dirty jokes to him.

Aang looked thoughtful, and something about that made Zuko's instincts prompt him to pay attention to the boy's expression. Love without passion, the poster had said. His _uncle_ had said. His uncle, who had an uncanny understanding of human nature and who had spent enough time with the Avatar to secure his cooperation in Ba Sing Se. Unconsciously, the firebender picked up the speed of the exercise as his brain went into a higher gear. The poster was a message from his uncle, there was no doubt about that.

So. Uncle knew he had been with Mai, and didn't approve. Well, that was nothing he hadn't already figured out But then there was the reference to love without passion, and Aang had protested that part of the poster.

"So…" This time it was Zuko who broke the silence. "How did you meet Katara and Sokka, anyway?"

Aang's eyes clouded with memory. "I didn't want to be the Avatar," he said. Zuko waited. "I just wanted to be a regular kid, but being the Avatar changed everything – except me. I ran away," he swallowed, choking back pain and guilt, "and got caught in a storm with Appa. I went into the Avatar state and put us both into a state of suspended animation in a globe of ice. Katara and Sokka found me and broke me out and took me to their village."

"And then I attacked," the firebender added grimly.

"At least you didn't hurt anyone?"

Zuko smiled faintly at the airbender's attempt to cheer him up. "I guess Katara and Sokka have been like a family to you then, huh?"

The guilty jerk of Aang's body was the last piece of the puzzle. He felt bad for the kid, crushing on the first girl who'd been nice to him in the world he'd woken up to.

"Do you suppose…if we rescued the Water Tribe prisoners, do you think Katara's dad would adopt me?"

Aang's concentration evaporated in shock and surprise. The fire he'd been juggling vanished. "_What?!"_

So much for humor… "I'd rather have Katara as a sister…"

Aang started to breathe a sigh of relief-

"…than Azula."

-and choked.

"I wouldn't even mind them trying to kill me," Zuko added, trying to lighten the mood and failing. "At least they'd be honest about it, right?" He grinned, struggling for a goofy look.

"Zuko," Aang groaned, "your jokes need work."

The ex-prince frowned. "Maybe Sokka would teach me."

Aang smothered giggles at the image.

"Should I call him 'Sifu Sokka'?" Zuko asked with as sincere an expression as he could manage.

The would-be master poked his head into the scorched courtyard. "Did mine ears deceive me, or is the Mighty Prince of the Nowhere Nation acknowledging me as his master?"

Zuko's lips twitched and he opened his eyes as wide as they would go. "Oh please, Sifu Sokka, please teach me the way of the joke!"

Sokka nodded smugly until the last word sunk in. "…joke?" His ego visibly deflated. "Not sword?"

Aang couldn't help it. He sat down and laughed until tears rolled down his cheeks and he was gasping for breath. The two older boys watched him for a minute before sharing a look.

"Not sword?" The Water Tribe boy asked plaintively.

"Sorry," the firebender replied, patting the other boy's shoulder consolingly. "We can spar later if you want."

Sokka sighed. "I guess that's better than nothing."

* * *

_You wouldn't think it would be so hard to find a quiet room in an abandoned temple._

Zuko sat in the still, dark room and calmed his breathing. After being interrogated by Katara, dancing around Aang, and being jabbed at by both Sokka and Toph, he felt he _deserved_ some alone time. Aside from needing to soothe his frazzled nerves and frayed temper, however, there was still the nagging feeling that he was missing the better part of his uncle's message. Passion without love, he'd already figured out and dealt with before leaving the palace. But love without passion…

The Avatar loved Katara, or thought he did, and was definitely too young to put any passion into it. The ex-prince frowned. 'Passion without love' had been referring to him, since he was sure Mai loved – or had loved – him. Did that mean Katara loved Aang, but without passion? She certainly looked old enough to know about that sort of passion, but maybe girls matured differently. It's not like he had enough experience in that area to be an expert…but his uncle did, and was. Was the poster a warning that the waterbender wasn't old enough for that kind of relationship?

Zuko scowled into the darkness. Who said he even _wanted_ a relationship with her? If she and the Avatar wanted to go off and be all lovey-dovey, that was perfectly fine with him!

_She offered to heal my scar._

The thought came to him suddenly, the darkness around him now tasting like the caverns beneath Ba Sing Se. She didn't know him, she had every right to hate him, but she'd offered to take away his mark of shame…

…and he'd turned on her, running back to Azula and his father like a whipped dog begging for more abuse. He deserved to be hated by her for that, and welcomed it as an expression of what he couldn't do to himself. That was why he wouldn't fight her anger, he told himself. He had betrayed the trust she'd offered him despite having every reason not to, so he owed her.

He smiled into the darkness, remembering how fiercely she'd fought after that. He'd seen her bend in battle before, and he had to admit that the flowing movements suited her. But when she fought against him, her spirit blazed and every movement looked like the motions of an angry goddess. Like the passion of the best firebenders merged with the grace of waterbending. Zuko frowned again, noticing the tone of his thoughts.

Okay, so she was attractive, powerful, passionate, and compassionate. That didn't mean he _loved_ her, just that he was…

A quiet groan echoed in the dark room. He was attracted to her. And he couldn't deny that her compassion had touched him; no one had really cared about him except Uncle since his mother had been banished. He respected her raw power – only a fool wouldn't, and while he had made some dumb mistakes in the past, that was one he would never make. As for her passion, well, it should probably have been a warning sign that when he discovered her skill in the Spirit Oasis, his reaction (after the indignation) had been _delight_. The ferocity with which she'd battled him had raised her in his eyes, and he felt his blood stir at the memory of that fight.

Hands tightening on his knees, Zuko restrained the urge to punch something until he bled. He'd been reborn in the dragon's fire, he reminded himself, he wasn't going to resort to anger anymore. Between deep, slow breaths, he contemplated the situation he was in. Why hadn't he noticed his feelings before now? A quiet, bitter chuckle escaped him. That was a stupid question. It took him _three years_ and getting what he thought he wanted to figure out that he didn't really want to be the prince his father wanted him to be. He just wanted it because that's what was expected of him. But then what did that say about Katara? That he'd ignored his feelings and pushed the whole idea out of the realm of possibility just because that's what was expected of him?

There was a long internal silence.

Well, yes, now that he thought about it, that _would_ completely explain it.

He loved her. But she hated him.

A mental shrug. Princes don't have the luxury of choosing their brides, and there was a good chance either he or she wouldn't survive the coming fight. And what if she did love the Avatar? Sure, he was still a kid, but kids grew up and he was proof that even the Avatar could find love and settle down. He was a former enemy, what right did he have to burden her with feelings that he probably wouldn't be able to follow through on, even if she was willing to consider them and the Avatar wasn't interested?

No right at all.

Zuko summoned a flame to light his way back out, a small smile playing across his lips. He would never fear the loss of his bending again, even after the war was over. _Katara _was his fire, and would be for the rest of his life.


End file.
